Monday, 18 October 2010

As I was at the Nottingham beer festival over the weekend I didn't get a chance to do anything with the OP clone. Although we were back on Sunday I was a bit too lazy to start sanitising things, so I left it until tonight when Gemma had gone out.

Had a bit of a disaster whilst siphoning and managed to lose a bit of beer at the end by trying to be clever and get a hydrometer reading whilst siphoning. I managed that, but also managed to tip a sample jar all over the floor. The reading though was (adjusted for temperature) 1.015.

I snuck a taste, as ever - certainly better than the taste I had last week, but still not too much like the original.

Thursday, 14 October 2010

We had Daz and Jen round last night for our own version of Oktoberfest - basically I cooked some sausage based meals and we drained the remaining mini-keg of the wheat beer. The beer had mellowed somewhat, lost some of the intense banana flavour, but also gained a little bit of body, seeming somehow less 'thin'. That being said it was still pretty drinkable and left me feeling a little grotty today. It certainly went well with my take on currywurst with rye bread, wurst with suaerkraut and apple served with fried potatoes.

So all in all I am going to declare my first foray into the world of extract brewing a success!

Sunday, 10 October 2010

It's brewday, this time trying to get a rough clone of Old Peculier done (based on Graham Wheeler's Brew Your Own British Real Ale). This is another extract brew and the first one in which I've steeped any grains. My aim here is to get this made and put away as a winter/Christmas-time treat -although I am probably not going to be at home for Christmas so how I manage to transport the brew is another interesting question.

Beer #7 - Old Peculier clone

300g Crystal Malt

220g Chocolate Malt

3.6kg Light Dry Malt Extract

14g Fuggles (90)

29g Challenger (90)

14g Goldings (10)

1/2 tsp Irish Moss (10)

Danstar Nottingham yeast

So adjustment for my method:

Flame on 6L water

When @ 40c add 1kg extract and grains

Just before boiling > 75c, remove grain bag and rinse through with just boiled water

Add 90 minute hops

After 80 minutes add additional hops & irish moss

Pour into FV, add small amount of water to cool a bit

Add remaining extract

Make up to 23L

When temperature is under 30c, pitch yeast

So once again the house smells of hops, which will hopefully mean I get a good nights sleep tonight. The beer went in the fermenter a little lighter than I'd aimed at at 1.053 ish (adjusted for temperature).

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

After about 3 weeks in 'secondary', a couple of days of which had a fishtank heater in I gave up and kegged the beer. Maybe the fishtank heater/gentle rouse helped as it looks like it's down to 1.016 now, which would make it 3.5%. It won't matter if it drops a couple of points in the barrel. Primed with 80g granulated sugar.

It will be a miracle if it doesn't end up swimming in fungus or something the amount of times I've been in and out of the fermenting bin. But we shall leave it and see I think. My sneaky taste thoughts were standard pale bitter, perhaps not as hoppy as I'd have liked -possibly I need to revisit my technique of bagging the hops or maybe increase the boil length?